Icon style: 40 years of Flou

This year, Flou and its best seller, Nathalie’s bed, are forty years old. We tell about how it was invented, what is its peculiarity and what is happening to it in our days.

When in 1978 the Sicilian Rosario Messina and his comrades founded Flou, he could hardly have predicted that he would make a revolution in the field of comfortable sleep.

The architect Vico Magistretti and the founder of Flou Rosario Messina in 1978.

But the breakthrough did not keep you waiting. First of all, Messina asked the great architect Vico Magistretti to come up with a bed. So there was Nathalie, who immediately turned the usual way “to buy separately the bed base, separately a mattress, pillows and bed-clothes”. The Nathalie bed was already completely ready for use – the base, mattress, pillows and bed linen went in kit, the buyer could only choose a color from a variety of options. Vico Magistretti said: “We turned the traditional approach to creating a bedroom, offering people the freedom to choose color combinations. Indefatigable Rosario Messina saw the potential of this bed and supported me. ” His son, the great fan of Russian literature, Vico Magistretti, named in honor of Natasha Rostova. Unusual design and user-friendliness attracted buyers: the fabric on the base and the headboard in the form of pillows with cute bow-ties are held on special Velcro, it can be easily removed and cleaned. Or completely change, if you want to refresh the interior.

Advertising turn of 1979, designed to demonstrate the coloristic variety of upholstery and bed linen Nathalie beds.

In 1979, launched the first advertising campaign under the slogan “Flou remade the bed.” At a time when advertising in the magazine took up a maximum of a page, Flou made a layout for the whole spread – another breakthrough, now in the advertisement of furniture items. Advertising was that. Not only was Nathalie’s bed really comfortable to use, it was also affordable: if you translate its current value into modern money, the price for a standard double model would be only 285 euros. The resounding success of Nathalie is not surprising – before it in the world market there really was not such an easy-to-buy and use model that would fit in almost any interior. It still looks modern today. By the way, Nathalie is part of the permanent exhibition of the Triennale in Milan.

Designers and engineers Flou do not stand still. Now the Nathalie bed can be collected directly on the company’s website as a designer. This is a very exciting activity. First, you choose the size of the bed (there are variations from single to increased king-size) and the type of base: conventional, with storage box or with electric drive. Go to the selection of upholstery – fabric options, artificial and natural leather hundreds, and it’s not easy to decide. The next step is choosing a mattress, mattress pad and pillows, there are a lot of them, and everyone can find a suitable copy for themselves. And in conclusion you need to decide what will be the bed linen: the abundance of prints, colors and fabrics can confuse even a very determined person. That’s all, your bed is ready!

Now the Nathalie bed can be assembled as a designer: choose a suitable base (with or without a drawer, with electric or conventional), upholstery from a variety of fabrics, artificial materials and genuine leather, suitable mattress, mattress pad, pillows and bedding.

After buying a bed, you can contribute to further research on sleep: Flou employees will ask you to download a special application – a sleep tracker – into the smartphone and send them data after a while. The results obtained will be taken into account in the further development of the foundations of beds, mattresses and pillows. Speaking about the bed Nathalie, you can not ignore the theme of fakes – it was not trying to turn only lazy. But Flou employees carefully monitor unfair competitors and regularly sue them, each time coming out as winners.

To date, Flou has more than fifty models of different beds created by great designers, but the very first, Nathalie, has been and remains the most popular model. The founder of Flou Rosario Messina said: “The bed is a special place, the future is born in it, families are created, people reflect on the future in bed. So I think now, so I thought and when I founded Flou. ” Unfortunately, the creator of Flou and the creator of Nathalie’s bed is no longer alive, but their business is thriving, and each of us can touch their heritage.